One month after President Donald Trump pardoned convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernandez, the controversial decision faces renewed scrutiny following the U.S. military’s January capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on similar narco-terrorism charges. The pardon, which freed the former Honduran president from a 45-year sentence for moving more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, has sparked accusations of hypocrisy from lawmakers across the political spectrum who question how the administration can justify pardoning one convicted drug kingpin while invading another country to prosecute another.
Trump pardoned Hernandez on December 1, overturning a conviction that federal prosecutors said exposed one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world. The pardon triggered immediate backlash from lawmakers who questioned how the move aligned with the administration’s hardline stance against narcotics flowing into the United States—criticism that intensified after the Jan. 3 military operation in Venezuela.
Judge P. Kevin Castel, who sentenced Hernandez on June 26, 2024, also ordered the former president to pay an $8 million fine. The conviction marked a stunning fall for a conservative leader who once partnered with U.S. law enforcement on anti-drug initiatives.
Trump defended his decision at the White House, claiming without evidence that the prosecution represented a Biden administration setup. “If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life,” he told reporters.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized the case as over-prosecution by the previous administration, suggesting Hernandez faced charges because he opposed the Biden administration’s values.
The case against Hernandez dated back to 2015, when federal investigators began examining Honduras as a major drug trafficking route. Prosecutors alleged he accepted $1 million in bribes to protect Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious Sinaloa Cartel boss now serving a life sentence in the United States.
Hernandez was extradited to the United States in April 2022, shortly after completing his second presidential term. The investigation and subsequent prosecution involved Emil Bove, then a Department of Justice prosecutor who helped lead the case. Bove later became a key defense attorney for Trump in the Stormy Daniels case. In July 2025, Bove was confirmed to serve as a federal appeals court judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals following Trump’s nomination.
The pardon’s timing proved critical to Honduras’s presidential election. After nearly a month of contested vote counting marred by fraud allegations and technical problems, electoral authorities declared Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura the winner on December 24. Asfura, a member of Hernandez’s National Party, won with 40.27 percent of the vote, narrowly edging out centrist Salvador Nasralla who received 39.53 percent. Nasralla rejected the results and maintained the election was fraudulent, while the ruling Libre party refused to recognize Asfura’s victory, calling it an “electoral coup” influenced by Trump’s interference.
Asfura was sworn in as Honduras president on Jan. 27, 2026. His inauguration marked another step in Latin America’s rightward shift, coming after Chile elected far-right politician José Antonio Kast as president.
However, Hernandez’s freedom proved short-lived in legal terms. On December 9, just eight days after his release, Honduras Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya issued an international arrest warrant for the former president on charges of money laundering and fraud. The warrant, part of the “Pandora II” corruption investigation, alleges Hernandez illegally diverted more than $12 million in state funds for his 2013 presidential campaign. Zelaya instructed Honduran authorities and urged Interpol to execute the arrest order, which had been signed by the Supreme Court on November 28—the same day Trump announced his intention to pardon Hernandez.
The pardon drew sharp criticism from lawmakers in both parties. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy questioned the logic of pardoning Hernandez while simultaneously pursuing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for drug trafficking. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine called the decision shocking, suggesting it revealed Trump cared nothing about narcotics trafficking.
The timing proved particularly awkward for the administration, which has ramped up military operations in the Caribbean targeting alleged drug boats and built up forces around Venezuela. In February 2025, the Trump Administration designated the Sinaloa Cartel—the same organization Hernandez worked with—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The contradiction between pardoning a convicted drug kingpin who aided a now-designated terrorist cartel while conducting aggressive anti-trafficking operations left some observers puzzled about the administration’s actual priorities in the region.